New and advanced technological innovations have given rise to entirely divergent ages time and again and brought massive revolutionary changes in all aspects of the world, including industries and business operations. Trains replaced horse carriages, emails took over telegraphs, and fixed land-line phones were substituted by smartphones and much more.
Over the years, the ongoing revolution of electronics introduced humans to use digital devices such as computer, digital TV, mobile phones and digital radio. Moreover, the gradually growing use of the internet around the globe has made way for tremendous transformations to constantly impact means of communication and data/information transmission that evolves cultures and lifestyles to a great extent.
Just like every other thing around us has gone through a major technological makeover over time, the internet has too. Back in the ’90s, devices communicated over Ethernet cables through a wired Local Area Network (LAN). Fast-forward to the 21st century, majority of the devices are connected to Wi-Fi i.e. a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) that allows people to communicate and connect wirelessly.
But this doesn’t stop here!
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is bringing about steady yet exponential changes to the virtual world and is gradually changing all walks of life including software products and services.
In today’s Golden Age of Technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is playing the role of a “game-changer,” especially when it comes to wireless networking technologies.
What is AI?
Artificial Intelligence is about building machines that are intelligent and capable enough to carry out tasks that naturally need human input and intelligence. Today, AI and Machine Learning are bringing drastic changes to all parts of the socio-economic world, including wireless technology and communication.
AI + Wireless Networking – A Dynamic Duo
When we talk about conventional WLANs, the most important feature about them is “troubleshooting.” Troubleshooting can be frustrating and tiresome; realizing that a Wi-Fi connection is problematic, spotting the root cause of the problem and solving the issue can be time-consuming.
Internet service providers such as AT&T Internet do all that they can to ensure smooth wireless functioning of the internet. However, sometimes troubleshooting Wi-Fi issues can be challenging as analyzing the issue and remediating it by dispersing equipped technicians with WLAN analysis tools to get RF readings can take up plenty of time. Applying AI solutions to deal with Wi-Fi issues makes the process more transparent by giving a deeper and quicker insight into the service and performance of the Wi-Fi networks so that the issues can be tackled more efficiently.
Employing AI in wireless technology makes detecting and tackling wireless network issues far more convenient for AI engineers as it provides them packs of data through database dumps and event logs that can be easily interpreted by them to examine or predict what kind of issues could arise and when.
Moreover, AI allows IT administrators to automate tiring operation tasks. Two examples could be: analyzing numerous events and sorting them out to identify the most crucial and relevant ones and packet captures. AI makes analysis easier by winding up manual configuration and urgent tasks and also helps in cutting down the costs of administration and IT support.
AI is Uplifting Wireless Service Providers (WSPs)
The demand and usage of wireless technology are growing at a fast pace with passing time and so is the number of its end-users. Many service providers who aim to offer up-to-date wireless networks such as AT&T are now efficiently using AI to enable them to set up and optimize more advanced networks such as 5G, eliminate fraud and cyber-security threats and even upgrade their customer service to provide prompt technical support in times of network glitches.
Nowadays, people mostly rely on their internet-enabled devices such as smartphones, tabs and iPad to gather information, seek entertainment, shop and communicate, which usually results in lots of traffic on the web that can result in slow speeds and downtime. AI helps WSPs in optimizing internet speeds and traffic so that users don’t face bandwidth roadblocks and can continue to download, stream and surf the web without any hurdles.
WSPs are also using AI to rule out cybersecurity threats such as scams, frauds and cyber thefts effectively. The use of AI and data helps them to identify potential security breaches by automatically tallying the IP address of online activities such as bank transactions with the location details on their other registered devices to see if they match or not. In case they don’t, an alarm is generated and they are notified.
WSPs are also using AI automation and data insights to generate algorithms that are specifically created to provide quicker and better customer support service to their end-users. These algorithms offer predictive capabilities and provide WSPs with an insight into customers’ demands so that the best available technician can be deployed accordingly in a short period.
Moreover, AI Chatbots are being used to enhance customer experience and provide a 24/7, highly prompt and personalized customer service to end-users to make them feel heard and cared for around the clock.
AI is indeed a great helping hand for Wireless Service Providers as it assists them big time in improving their wireless technology to satisfy the needs of today’s hyper-connected world.
Takeaway
In a few years, AI will take complete charge of wireless technologies and networks. For the time being, various businesses and services are using AI in the form of management tools to help IT technicians in identifying and remediating wireless networking issues more efficiently and faster through automation of basic tasks.
AI saves time and costs spent on deploying IT solutions, but isn’t a threat to human jobs at all. Instead, AI helps IT engineers and technicians by simplifying the monotonous tasks and gives them more time to work on expanding and improving their products or services.
Wireless technologies are growing exponentially and becoming common. However, with time, as the number of digital devices connected wirelessly to the internet grows, the wireless networks are expected to do more in terms of handling massive amounts of data going back and forth through it.
In this high-tech world where every other individual is connected to the internet and there are countless end-users, manual configuration methods might not be ample enough to deal with the growing demand and usage of the wireless technology. AI-based systems are becoming important day by day, especially for WSPs to keep their Wi-Fi performance up to the mark and carry out troubleshooting processes in less time with higher efficiency.
